S&P 500<\/a>\u2019s relatively modest 5 per cent fall, but no matter. A crash is coming, and \u201cnot next year, not in theory, but now\u201d.<\/p>\nTo reinforce the sense of urgency, he says \u201calmost everybody\u201d in the financial press agrees with him. He even cites an unnamed FT columnist (\u201ca man of obvious wealth from the way in which he writes\u201d) apparently predicting a 40 per cent drop while still keeping half his wealth in equities \u2013 an apparent contradiction Murphy finds \u201cbaffling\u201d.<\/p>\n
The recent market dip leaves Murphy feeling \u201csort of vindicated\u201d. Really? <\/p>\n
In December 2017 he warned \u201cthere is a bubble\u201d that would \u201csoon\u201d burst. In November 2018, he dismissed strong equity returns as \u201cpretty much an urban myth\u201d. In January 2021, he was \u201cnot convinced a crash can be avoided\u201d, calling valuations \u201cincredible\u201d.<\/p>\n
Including dividends, the S&P 500 has nearly tripled since December 2017 and is up 90 per cent since early 2021. Investors who heeded such warnings might feel less \u201cvindicated\u201d.<\/p>\n
A former adviser to Jeremy Corbyn, Murphy\u2019s background is in tax and accounting, not portfolio management, but his certainty is striking. For someone regularly appalled by market optimism, he remains remarkably optimistic about one thing: that the crash he has predicted since 2017 will finally arrive.<\/p>\n
It may. Markets do fall, and stocks look expensive. However, forecasting a crash every year and declaring victory after a 5 per cent pullback is like predicting rain in Ireland and celebrating when a cloud appears. No one \u2013 not brokers, not analysts, not financial journalists and certainly not Richard Murphy \u2013 can reliably call market tops and bottoms. <\/p>\n
If markets teach anything, it\u2019s that a little humility outperforms certainty in the long run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Self-described \u201ceconomic justice campaigner\u201d Prof Richard Murphy is again warning that the end is nigh. \u201cFinancial markets across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,92972,102080],"class_list":{"0":"post-194125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-jeremy-corbyn","13":"tag-sp500"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115592685499695263","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}